


I Sketched You

by durinsheir (ShadowChanger)



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Gen, and then there's Leo, but you would have to squint and tilt your head and change the brightness, caged animal!Riario, could be shippy if you squint, expanded obvs, protective but don't say it out loud!Riario, that incan prison scene, there's some blood and death so yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 07:44:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1379536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowChanger/pseuds/durinsheir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The words are out – or are they, did he imagine saying them, because that has happened before, a lot – But Riario is staring at him from across the room, so the words must have slipped out. Hm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Sketched You

**Author's Note:**

> This show has ruined my life. I watched the entire first season in one sitting. My ass was numb. 
> 
> Seriously. If you haven't heard of it, Da Vinci's Demons, it comes on Starz, and right now they're showing the first season for free on starzplay.com. Check it out. 
> 
> This picks up at the beginning of the first episode of season two where Leo and Riario are having a raspy, long-haired philosophical conversation in a damp stone prison somewhere in the Incan Empire. You should probably watch that first.
> 
> *dialogue at the end taken directly from the show, not mine, I do not own, no money made from this, etc

“I sketched you.”

The words are out – or are they, did he imagine saying them, because that has happened before, a lot – But Riario is staring at him from across the room, so the words must have slipped out. Hm.

“On the ship. Well. Before that, too, in Florence. But after the ship got boring, you were there, and you weren’t boring.”

“I did not see you.” His voice is hoarse, rougher than its usual timbre, from two days of silence.

Leonardo feels his filthy skin crease as he grins. “I climbed the rigging.”

A breathy snort is the only response.

There are a million things Leonardo could say next to keep the conversation (one-sided as it is) going, to keep the silence at bay, but nothing seems adequate. Amber eyes rimmed with distressed white continue to watch him. The exact color eludes him. It’s not amber, not really, because sometimes they go dark and sometimes the sun brings out a few flecks of hazel. Next time he will use ochre and gold. Yes. Gold will match the feathers in the wings he has drawn so many times arcing out from beneath trim shoulders.

“ _Artista._ ”

Dark lashes come down over dark eyes, interrupting Leonardo’s examination.

“ _Artista_ , you are glaring.”

“I could never get them right. Most frustrating thing I have ever attempted – besides Vanessa’s, you know, she has this _look_ that no one will ever be able to capture, not even me – what?”

Riario is tilting his head slightly to one side, a curious expression on his face. “Glaring,” he repeats lowly, “and at me, it seems. What could you never ‘get right’?” He leans away from the wall, hands folded carefully in his lap. Leonardo notices the way he covers the precise wounds decorating each palm. They will scar. Leo will have to redraw them later, add the faint lines trailing down the underside of each finger and circling the palms. The Count had not screamed when the knife split his skin, only bared his teeth and held the gaze of his torturer unblinkingly.

They had threatened Leonardo’s hands, both of them, until Riario began cursing the natives, a dozen languages falling from his tongue like water.

They did not speak of it, even when Leonardo ripped off the hem of his shirt to stem the carmine flow.

“Your eyes. They are the most vexing color.” He does not mention his endless struggle with perfecting the fire roaring in that gaze. Perhaps a series of avenging angels will have to be painted later.

“My sincerest apologies,” Riario deadpans.

Leonardo smiles again. Riario smirks. The steady stream of water through their small window continues. Weak light from the outside creates a line on the stone floor. Dust motes are suspended in the stagnant air, uncaring of Leonardo’s attempts to make them into constellations.

He has mapped the entire room by then, of course. The door, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the tiny window, and the intriguing altar in the corner – all stone, stone, stone, no wood or stucco or comforting cloth. Only bare rock surrounds them.

The line of light across the floor will shrink to nothingness in twenty-seven minutes as the sun sinks below the horizon. Leonardo crawls forward to sit cross-legged at the edge of the light. The dust is wildly disturbed by his movement and swirls away into the shadows. He allows his fingers to pick up their usual fluttering, tapping out the rhythm of his thoughts onto the stone and in the air.

He does not notice Riario until the Count is directly across from him. They face each other through the beam of sunlight, Leonardo just on the edge and Riario with one leg carelessly thrown out into the light. The side of his face is shadowed dramatically. The lighting is terrible, but Leonardo still wishes he had paper and a stick of charcoal.

Leonardo’s twitching hand comes to a halt in midair, fingers curled, inches away from Riario’s booted foot. It is worn and filthy, like the rest of him. Leonardo is not so vain as to think he looks any better. This is the longest his hair has ever been. He wonders why the Count did not allow his to grow out as well. Hm.

“Did you ever think we would see the end together?” Riario’s voice pulls him away from trying to think of the last time he bathed. The question gives him pause, sobers his whirlwind mind for a moment. His brow creases above his eyes.

“I never believed that I would be facing an end at all.” He says it honestly. Even when faced with Lorenzo’s wrath, Alfonso’s twin swords, and storms at sea, he knew he would live. Why shouldn’t he? He had taken up this mission, and he would see it to the end. This was not the end.

Riario never blinks. “God is laughing at us, Da Vinci.” It has been a long time since he called Leonardo anything but _artista._

Leonardo is about to remind the Count that he does not believe that God exists to laugh at anyone, much less a heathen and the Pope’s rebellious nephew on the other side of the world, when they hear the drums. _Doom, doom boom. Boom. Dadoom._ He casts his eyes to the ceiling, half a sigh forming in his lungs. Of course they would do this in the middle of his and the Count’s conversation. The chanting picks up, then, and even Leonardo is surprised when blood comes sliding down the side of the altar. It has come from the hole in the ceiling, he notices, and runs down the small canals carved into the statue above the altar. It is fascinating, in a way, but it also informs him of what could await them outside their prison.

“This is _not_ our fate,” he declares, locking eyes with Riario once more. The other man’s pupils have widened as the light between them begins to fade. Leonardo notices the way Riario has shifted slightly. The outstretched leg is now bent at the knee, foot braced flat against the floor. One hand is pressed palm down on the stone next to him. He looks ready to flee at any moment.

“One way or another, this is every man’s fate.” Riario replies. His eyes are sad. “Our lives,” he blinks, swallows, and takes a breath, “are made by the deaths of others.” It is a very Girolamo Riario sort of thing to say. Leonardo finds he is not surprised. Disappointed, maybe, at the man’s acceptance.

“You are very quick to surrender.”

“After all we’ve seen,” Riario’s breath stutters, “-lost,” his eyes dart away from Leonardo, “perhaps you’re naïve to endure.” The gaze returns, heavy with emotions Leonardo cannot pick out. The chanting and beating drums grow louder above them. Vibrations travel through the stone, shaking dust down onto their heads.

The artist frowns. “There is a greater story here,” he tells Riario, “still being written.” It is a reassurance, both to himself and the Count. The story is not over. They have not found the Vault. Leonardo has not found his mother. There is more to this tale, he knows, and it does not end here. It cannot end here.

“By whom, _artista_?” Riario asks him. By whom, indeed.

The solid stone door of their cell is opened before Leonardo can formulate an answer. It is the High Priestess and her guards. The men are armed with saw-toothed weapons. Leonardo and Riario remain on the floor. The Count’s posture stiffens, then loosens suddenly, and calculations begin slicing through Leonardo’s mind. The jagged swords will prove to be a problem, as will the size of their bearers, not to mention the fact that neither Leo nor Riario has eaten in two days. And then there are the hundreds of natives gathered outside the cells, still chanting. There was no escape from this, not yet.

The High Priestess barks an order at her guards. The first steps forward and fists a hand in Leonardo’s hair, yanking painfully, and the artist has about two-thirds of a second to admire the perfect geometry of Riario’s body unfolding from the floor before all hell breaks loose.

 _Crunch_ – the first guard releases Leonardo and drops his weapon, howling, in order to cover his broken nose. Blood drips onto Leonardo’s shoulder as he turns, sweeping the guard’s legs out from under him. He comes down hard on his shoulder, another dull crack echoing beneath the pounding drums. Leonardo grabs him by the hair and slams the side of his head into the stone; the guard goes limp instantly.

Riario is already turning to the second guard, his knuckles split and bloody. He dodges the first swing of the crude sword and catches the second with one bandage wrapped hand. The bandages are thin, though, and Leonardo hears a grunt of pain as the weapon is wrenched out of Riario’s hand. Crimson follows, as does the retaliation of the guard. He rushes the Count, hand grabbing him by the neck and throwing him to the floor. Riario’s head connects with the stone at the same time as the air is forced out of his lungs. Leonardo sees his eyes roll and flicker, hands scrabbling at the guard’s claw-like grip around his throat. A feeble choking is all that the Count can manage when he tries to breathe. His face pales and he begins to thrash, legs kicking out and missing the guard. One hand is flung out toward Leonardo, fingers scratching themselves bloody into the stone. Those eyes, damn those eyes, flash to the artist, wide and nearly entirely black.

“Stop!” Leonardo yells at the High Priestess. She understands his words, he knows she does. “Let him go!”

Riario’s struggles begin to weaken. He manages to knee the guard in the back, but it is ineffectual. His sword-slashed hand drips blood onto his own face as he jerks at the guard’s arm. His face goes from red, to purple, to ashen grey, and Leonardo yells at the High Priestess again. She smiles at the artist. It is ugly, despite her beauty.

An unspoken signal passes from her to the guard, and Riario is released, the guard resuming his position beside the High Priestess as if nothing had happened. The Count gasps raggedly, choking on air, saliva, and pain. His body bows upward as he struggles to breathe again. Leonardo stays where he is, hands itching and fingers fluttering against his thighs. The choking evens out into heavy breaths punctuated by wet coughs.

“Come,” says the High Priestess in Spanish, still smiling. Riario has rolled onto his side, eyes closed. His hands, carnelian and wet, are tangled in his dark, greasy hair. The blood smears against his temples and on his cheekbones. Leonardo has a vision of pomegranate juice overlaid by Saint Sebastian overlapping with death and war and pain and Girolamo is dead in this vision, throat cut, a smile on his face, tawny eyes open, and Leonardo can taste blood and scrambles to his feet, breathing in tandem with the Count. The vision is gone. Leonardo can still taste blood – he has bitten his tongue.

“Come, _artista_.” He prefers it in Italian. “Your _yanaymi_ will follow.”

Leonardo stumbles when the guard reaches for him, and the motion makes the native smirk. Riario is on his hands and knees now, his breathing heavy but controlled. While Leo is staring, the edge of the crude sword comes to rest on his collarbone, and he grunts in surprise. The hand on his shoulder is firm, but not painful. He is led out of the stone prison behind the High Priestess. Coughing and uneven footsteps following them confirm her words.

They are led up a flight of steps, and the chanting is almost deafening now. A third guard has replaced the one they left dead in the cell, his slightly sleeker weapon hovering beneath Riario’s bruised neck.

The stairs end at the edge of a stone stage ringed with firelight and hundreds – no, thousands – of Incan faces. They chant in unison as Leonardo and Riario are led around a young woman with bound hands. She is not from their ship. A mountain of a man pushes her to her knees in front of a pedestal and slits her throat almost gently. Her blood streams down the pedestal – and down through the floor onto the altar in the cell below. Ah.

“Well, we both wanted to see what’s next.” Riario’s voice is thick and hoarse, like he has swallowed sand. He stands up straight next to Leonardo and meets his gaze head on. The artist can see the perfect outline of the guard’s fingers on Riario’s neck. The bruise will be livid, vermillion and indigo, before long.

“There’s still time,” he replies automatically. There will always be time. Is there still time for the two of them? There should be. Time is a river, river overflowing, water carrying them to the Vault to the Book to Florence to Rome to Vinci to his mother –

_\- artista_

“ _Artista_.”

They will survive. They will see the end, together, but this is not that end.

“ _Artista,_ you are staring.”

This is not their end.

**Author's Note:**

> ochre, carmine, tawny, carnelian, vermillion, indigo = colors. Ochre and tawny are a goldish brown. Carmine, carnelian, and vermillion are shades of red. 
> 
> yanaymi is (according to Google) Incan for "equivalent one." It seemed fitting. I do not profess to understand Incan in any form or fashion. Please accept my apologies if this word sucks.
> 
> \- duri


End file.
